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The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Pageant in the Wilderness: Following in the Footsteps of Friars Dominguez & Escalante
Saturday – Monday, September 19-21, 2026 (August 27 – September 17, 1776)

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition through the southwest and I wanted to do a little something special to celebrate the semiquincentennial of this monumental undertaking in my own little way. Although I would have liked to have been able to follow in the footsteps of Dominguez & Escalante (D&E) for the entirety of their route through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, I just don’t have that kind of free time available to me right now and decided it would be nice to just concentrate on the section of their route that is closest to my home. I planned to pick up their route at the Uncompahgre River in Montrose and then follow in their footsteps as closely as I could over the Grand Mesa and Roan Plateau to the White River, and then finally to the Green River in the Uinta Basin in Utah. I figured that I should be able to cover this part of their route in a weekend, but still, even with this shorter route a weekend would probably be too short for me to see it all and I would be limited on the amount of hiking I would be able to do along the way, sticking mostly to roads that roughly follow their original route.

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Dark Canyon Trail to the Devils Stairway

Raggeds Wilderness | Friday & Saturday, June 23-24, 2023

With the desert trails starting to heat up, it’s now time for me to start chasing cooler temperatures in the mountains after having a great season on the local rivers this spring. While there is still a lot of snow up in the high country from our big winter, I decided to start out with some lower elevation hikes this weekend. Since Colorado Highway 133 had finally reopened up earlier in the week I planned to spend Saturday morning hiking through the Dark Canyon of Anthracite Creek into the heart of the Raggeds Wilderness. I left from work on Friday afternoon, made a quick stop for gas in Delta and then followed the North Fork of the Gunnison River until I reached the Kebler Pass Road just below the Paonia Reservoir.

A Taste of Autumn in the West Elks

Fall Colors 2018 | Friday & Saturday, September 28-29, 2018

Aside from a quick unplanned evening on the Grand Mesa almost two weeks ago, my schedule at the end of September and early October didn’t really leave me much time for a proper Fall Colors weekend photography trip since I had a must-attend concert in Salt Lake City on Sunday evening and a river trip through Labyrinth Canyon the weekend before. Even with all the preparations for an upcoming week-long adventure into Utah I did manage to get out for a quick overnight trip to the West Elk Mountains after work on Friday. I just hoped that there was some color around for me to photograph during this narrow window of time in the mountains!

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Beckwith Pass

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Since I’ve spent the past two weekends visiting the San Juan Mountains near Ouray, Diane and I decided to make our way over to Kebler Pass today for a little hiking in the West Elk Mountains near Crested Butte. We started just outside of the Lost Lake Slough campground and hiked up the gentle trail to Beckwith Pass, which is a low pass between East Beckwith Mountain (12,432) and the Antracite Range. While the trail never broke 10,000 feet of elevation, there were plenty of clearings that offered great views of Ruby Peak (12,644) and Mount Owen (13,058) in the Ruby Range all the way to Marcellina Mountain (11,348) and The Raggeds. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this trail but the scenery was much better than I had anticipated, plus the wildflowers were just starting to bloom. We will definitely be back to check out some of the other trails in this area, especially in the fall when the colors are changing.

Fall Colors in the Elk Mountains

Fall Colors 2014
Saturday & Sunday, September 27-28, 2014

Since we had seen some early fall colors in the San Juan Mountains last weekend, we decided to head over into the Elk Mountains this time to check on the fall colors there for my annual Fall Colors weekend. I planned to visit a few locations I have been to before and then try out a few new ones. We left early Saturday and took a late morning drive along Kebler Pass and over Ohio Pass before turning around and heading back out the same way. We then drove over McClure Pass and found a campsite along Prince Creek near Carbondale before continuing up along Capitol Creek to catch the sunset over Capitol Peak (14,130 feet).

Tag: ragged peak

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition: 250 Years Later

Dark Canyon Trail to the Devils Stairway

A Taste of Autumn in the West Elks

Beckwith Pass

Fall Colors in the Elk Mountains